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Graduate School of Business

The Course

Designing Organizations for Creativity and Innovation

This course focuses on a framework for thinking about the organizational ecosystem, and how we can use a human-centered design process to effectively diagnose the roots of very common organizational problems (e.g., lack of coordination and trust between units, shortage of time for creative thinking, loss of top talent).

In this LEAD Preview course, you will

Investigate facets of organizations that underpin an organization's culture, what a strong organizational culture really means, and how to build it

Work with a partner to visually depict an organization's culture

Compare and contrast the organizational cultures of two companies to gain insight into how an organizational culture can be built and maintained, and how organizational cultures function

The full Designing Organizations for Creativity and Innovation course in the LEAD Certificate studies the interplay among formal structure, routines, informal networks, and culture in shaping organizational performance, change, innovation, and employee engagement.

What to expect

Begin with a virtual live kickoff session hosted by LEAD Course Facilitator & MBA Alum, Jonathan Daves on March 29, 2017 at 8:00 AM Pacific Time

Join a virtual live interactive session led by Professor Sarah Soule on April 11, 2017 at 4:00 PM Pacific Time

About the LEAD Certificate Program

This Preview is exclusively from the Stanford LEAD Certificate in Corporate Innovation, an immersive online program taught by tenured GSB faculty. The program is designed to be completed in one year and comprises 8 courses, including 3 required foundation courses and 5 electives of your choice. Upon completion of all 8 courses, 24 Continuing Education Units (CEUs) and a Stanford GSB Certificate are awarded.

Learn at your own pace, on your own turf with video lectures, live virtual events, and assignments

Build an exclusive network of professionals from around the globe who are committed to driving change in their organizations

Enrollment in the LEAD Certificate program is limited and tuition is $16,000. There is no fee to apply and no GMAT is required.

The Instructor

Sarah Soule

Morgridge Professor of Organizational Behavior

Sarah A. Soule is the Morgridge Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business. Her major areas of interest are organizational theory, social movements, and political sociology. She has written two recent books, the first with Cambridge University Press, entitled Contention and Corporate Social Responsibility, and the second with Norton, called A Primer on Social Movements. She is the series editor for the Cambridge University Press Contentious Politics series. She is a member of the founding team of the new journal, Sociological Science, an open access journal that is disrupting academic publishing. She has served on a number of boards of non-profit organizations, is currently a member Board of Advisors to the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (the Stanford d.school) Fellowship program, and is currently serving on the faculty advisory board to the Stanford Center for the Advancement of Women's Leadership. She has taught a number of courses with the Stanford d.school, and is the Faculty Director for the Executive Program on Social Entrepreneurship at the Graduate School of Business. She has served as a judge for the Center for Social Innovation Fellowship program, and for the Tech Awards (Tech Museum of Innovation).

Course Overview

The company that has the most paying customers wins. But how do you get the word out, drive demand for your products and services, and generate sales? Today good marketing involves a clear strategy to reach the target audience, execute appropriate tactics, and measure results. In this course, you will master the fundamentals of outbound and inbound marketing and explore the myriad of options available in today’s world of traditional and social media. Learn how to apply your skills to create a robust and innovative marketing strategy for a new product or a new company.

Learn How To

Combine traditional, social and mobile media to drive viral demand

Virality does not just happen, though it may look that way. It generally takes months or years of careful planning and experimentation. Learn how to use product design, outbound and inbound marketing to drive viral demand for a business-to-consumer product. Learn how marketing today requires a thorough understanding of the target market and a multitude of traditional, social and innovative marketing programs.

Leverage outbound demand generation

Outbound marketing is what most people think of when they think of marketing. It is the act of “:buying” a prospects attention or seeking them out. Learn how marketers provide air cover through effective PR and Buzz marketing as well as the basics of driving action that results in people buying something.

Tap inbound demand

Learn what inbound marketing is all about, how it got started, and what is fundamentally different from the more traditional world of outbound. Explore the new tools marketers now have in hand and are learning how to use every day.

Use core demand generation principles and guidelines

Create and use a messaging platform for optimal public relations and buzz marketing.

Overview

The company that has the most paying customers wins. But how do you get the word out, drive demand for your products and services, and generate sales? Today good marketing involves a clear strategy to reach the target audience, execute appropriate tactics, and measure results. In this course, you will master the fundamentals of outbound and inbound marketing and explore the myriad of options available in today’s world of traditional and social media. Learn how to apply your skills to create a robust and innovative marketing strategy for a new product or a new company.

Learn How To

Combine traditional, social and mobile media to drive viral demand

Virality does not just happen, though it may look that way. It generally takes months or years of careful planning and experimentation. Learn how to use product design, outbound and inbound marketing to drive viral demand for a business-to-consumer product. Learn how marketing today requires a thorough understanding of the target market and a multitude of traditional, social and innovative marketing programs.

Leverage outbound demand generation

Outbound marketing is what most people think of when they think of marketing. It is the act of “:buying” a prospects attention or seeking them out. Learn how marketers provide air cover through effective PR and Buzz marketing as well as the basics of driving action that results in people buying something.

Tap inbound demand

Learn what inbound marketing is all about, how it got started, and what is fundamentally different from the more traditional world of outbound. Explore the new tools marketers now have in hand and are learning how to use every day.

Use core demand generation principles and guidelines

Create and use a messaging platform for optimal public relations and buzz marketing.

Newly updated – open for enrollment!

Application and fee apply.

Overview

Growth requires getting people to do more and do it better. Senior executives, managers, frontline employees and other players need to spread existing pockets of excellence to more people in more places. This course is based on the premise that scaling is a crucial skill for building vibrant and enduring organizations—small startups to large enterprises—in every industry and sector. You will learn best practices and principles for scaling excellence, and hear from industry leaders who have applied these principles successfully.

Learn how to

Build an organizational mindset of accountability and ownership

Learn how to scale up organizations and projects by creating strong and resilient bonds between people. Enable people to feel and act as if they own the place and the place owns them.

Evaluate the scaling capacity of your organization

Learn to identify the prevalent mindset within your company, and what are some taboos that exist within your organization. Evaluate the grit and resilience of the people involved in your scaling effort. Decide whether your scaling effort requires a Catholic approach (emphasizing replication) or a Buddhist approach (emphasizing variation).

Avoid traps that inhibit scaling

Sidestep common scaling mistakes by applying the pre-mortem methodology and by learning from stories and case studies of companies who have scaled successfully.

Instructors

Hayagreeva Rao,Professor of Organizational Behavior, Stanford Graduate School of Business

This course is offered by Stanford's Graduate School of Business. Application and fee applies.

Course Description

The best and most innovative ideas will never see the light of day unless they can obtain funding. How can you, as a manager or entrepreneur, make the most convincing case to advance your projects and make them attractive to senior decision makers or outside investors? And how do successful companies and investors pick the best products and manage R&D investments? Effective product innovation relies on clearly defined financial models and analysis. This course will explore the tools of financial valuation and their role in investment decisions faced by managers, entrepreneurs, and investors. You will learn the difference between earnings and cash flow, the importance of net working capital, and the determinants of a firm's cost of capital. You will explore the sources and drivers of value and how to maximize created value. Finally, you will apply financial valuation tools to understand how firms are valued by investors, considering both publicly traded and venture-backed firms.

Learn How To:

Identify the determinants of earnings, cash flows, and shareholder value

Build a financial model to assess the value proposition for a product or investment

Now Open!

Overview

An innovative product may be a feat of engineering, but that does not necessarily turn it into a commercial success. What makes the difference between success in the lab and in the marketplace is the business model, which describes how we will create and deliver value for our customers, and how we will extract some of that value for our own organization. The business model encompasses our product or service, our customers, and the economic engine that will enable us to meet our profitability and growth objectives. Business model analysis is important for both startups and new businesses, which need to discover a successful business model, and for established businesses, which often need to defend or evolve their business models.

This course develops a structured way to think about business models and uses exercises and examples to train you in the science of business model analysis and to help you practice the art of business model construction.

The Course

The success of every venture depends on scaling: on sustaining and enhancing its effectiveness as it adds more employees, customers, and locations. The problem, however, is that scaling comes with inherent risk. Even the best founders and teams face setbacks, make mistakes, and must muddle through stretches of confusion and uncertainty.

Professors Huggy Rao and Bob Sutton devoted seven years to understanding the differences between organizations that scale well and those that scale badly. In the process, they have identified what leaders can do to increase their organization's odds of success. They compiled the lessons they learned into the Wall Street Journal best-selling book Scaling Up Excellence: How to Get More Without Settling for Less.

This course is running for the second time after a successful first run in 2014. For a "behind the scenes" look at the development of the MOOC, watch the video below.

In this course, you will learn the principles that will help you scale up your venture without screwing up.

You'll address questions that cut to the heart of the scaling challenge:

How can you avoid the illusion, impatience, and incompetence that are hallmarks for botched scaling efforts?

What should your strategy be? Should you be more “Catholic" and replicate one model as you grow? Or should you take a more “Buddhist" approach and encourage local customization as your footprint expands?

How can you avoid cognitive overload on yourself and those you lead, while at the same time, add necessary complexity as your team and organizations grows?

The course consists of assigned readings, lectures, exercises, and video interviews. Each week will present you with different questions, and assigned readings fromScaling Up Excellence. Additionally, lectures that extend the insights of the book have been prepared, and the video interviews provide rich practical advice. The video interviews feature some of the most successful venture capitalists and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, such as:

Chip Conley, founder and former CEO of Joie de Vivre boutique hotel company and current Head of Global Hospitality & Strategy at Airbnb

Through the exercises, you will be able to apply the learnings directly to develop your scaling plan. At the end of the course, there is a live webinar during which some of the best works from the class will be showcased.

More Information

Textbook: Scaling Up Excellence by Robert Sutton and Huggy Rao. Random House, 2014. It is available in hardcover and e-book (iBook or Kindle) versions.

Workload: Expect to spend between 4 - 6 hours per week on the course over the five-week period. This class is mostly asynchronous and does not meet at specific times. There will be one live webinar in the final week of the course that will be recorded for those who are unable to attend.

Technical Requirements: You need a computer that allows you to watch the video lectures, and the ability to upload your assignments, which will be images, videos, slides, and text. You should also be prepared to collaborate with teammates via email, Skype, and other free online tools.

Prerequisites: None

Statement of Accomplishment: Subject to satisfactory performance and course completion, you will receive a statement of accomplishment signed by the instructor. This statement will not stand in the place of a course taken at Stanford or an accredited institution.